


all manner of truth

by reclamation



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2019-07-12 20:28:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16002692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reclamation/pseuds/reclamation
Summary: Éponine decides they all should be at the barricade. Together.





	all manner of truth

**Author's Note:**

> Re-posting some old deleted works. Originally published for [Les Misérables Holiday Exchange 2014](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/LesMiserablesWinter2014).

“Is this correct?” Cosette asks.

“Not even a little bit,” Éponine answers, mouth twisting at the sight before her.

Cosette is clad only in what Éponine has provided; she is stripped down to a pair of tattered breeches and a rough cloth to bind her breasts. The thin cloth around her chest looks all the dirtier against her clean skin, and she has tied it too tightly so that it bites into the flesh there to turn it even paler at the edges. Not only is it bound too tight, it completely fails to accomplish its purpose. To be fair, Éponine had not offered a demonstration. She had merely rucked up her own shirt to show Cosette how it should look and left her to it.

Éponine knows every winding alleyway and too dark street in Paris. She is familiar with the city in a way that settles in her bones so that it is an inextricable part of herself, and even so she cannot say what paths have led them to this point. She remembers Marius at the barricade and her own plan to meet him there. She remembers the wrench of her heart, knowing this would be the last for both of them. But the letter she kept from him had weighed heavily on her when it should have been lightest.

Perhaps that's why she found herself outside Cosette’s home, avoiding the old man who had made a sentinel of himself inside. And why her heart had turned over uncomfortably with a strange, new thought: It need not be only Marius and her; they should  _all_  go; they should all die there, at the barricade.

She leaves the letter tucked into the door for the old man to find—with some painstakingly scrawled additions of her own—so that he might know where to collect Cosette’s body later, and she takes the girl.

It was easier to convince Cosette than to dodge the old man. All it took is a mere, “I'm Marius’ friend. He's in danger,” and Cosette was ready to follow Éponine straight through the gates of hell. She never says the words 'I love him' and neither does Cosette.

Cosette frowns in what should be discouragement at the binding, only it looks too pretty an expression for true displeasure.

Éponine wants to take her by the shoulders and shake her.

Instead, she reaches out with her hands—as smudged with dirt as the cloth itself—so that she can undo the knot and unwind it from Cosette’s body. Cosette blushes as she is made bare and covers her breasts with her hands. She is all the prettier for her obvious embarrassment.

They are losing time.

Every minute they dawdle will make it harder to slink in with the students and past the Guard. Éponine will not miss her opportunity because she’s waiting on a silly little girl.

“Let me do it,” Éponine huffs, “Or we’ll miss the whole thing waiting on you to get this right. Hands up.”

To her surprise, Cosette offers an apologetic smile and does as bid. She raises her arms above her head, and the lean flesh curves beautifully from the delicate taper of her waist to the tip of her fingers. For a beat, Éponine cannot help but admire. The bitterness that's always so close to the surface wells up, and she says, “Well, it’s no wonder you’ve got him not knowing up from down.”

She begins to set the cloth around Cosette, leaving the tail tucked under the first layer as she wraps it carefully around. She tries not to, but Éponine cannot help but touch Cosette through the process. Although Éponine has watched Cosette nearly as carefully as Marius does, they are strangers to each other now, and yet Éponine has her hands curling around the swell of a breast that is not her own to better usher the binding into place. It is intimate. Her mouth is dry and she finds it hard to swallow with unblemished skin under her hands. Nor is it something she could describe, even if she trusted herself to speak, as the warmth of Cosette enters through her hands and kindles every place of Éponine’s body except her soon-to-be-still heart.

Deliberately, she ties off the cloth and smooths the knot as much as she can. The attempt to obscure Cosette’s figure is at least somewhat passable.

Cosette gives Éponine another smile, this one as unexpected and unasked for as the first.

“Thank you,” Cosette says.

The urge to shake her has not diminished. Éponine means to answer with as insincere a ‘you’re welcome’ as she can muster, but the words never make it past the pit in her chest.

She says, “Hurry. The faster we go, the easier it’ll be getting through.”

She shoves the last of the outfit at Cosette—shirt, coat, belt, cravat, and cap. They are all shabbier than the items Éponine selected for herself yesterday. There is a thrill to scuffing up such a lovely little lark, a peculiar glee to bringing Cosette down from bourgeois perfection so that they match for once. Except once Cosette has shuffled the too large clothing into place, Éponine realizes her error. Because Cosette doesn’t look boyish exactly, not as Éponine does, but manages a beautiful ambiguity you might see in the fancy images laid into colored cathedral windows.

Stick wings on Cosette’s back and a halo on her head and she might be the bright-eyed patron angel of urchins. Rather grimy now for an angel, but an angel all the same, sexless and unearthly and exquisite.

Éponine reaches out again, not sure why until her fingers press at Cosette’s cravat. Without her permission, her hands readjust the knot that was perfectly serviceable to begin with. Next, they flutter up to adjust Cosette’s cap to better hide her long hair. She pulls them back to her sides quickly before they find another task.

“Better?” Cosette asks, looking for all the world like she wants Éponine's approval of all things.

“You’ll do,” Éponine says. Cosette beams in response.

Cosette tucks Éponine’s arm into the crook of her elbow. The gesture is friendly, even as her tone is serious, “We should go.” She adds, a teasing lilt adding in her sweet voice, “Only if you’re ready,  _monsieur_.”

She smiles again, except now Éponine knows to look for that fierceness that isn’t apparent at first glance. She could almost learn to like the determined set to Cosette’s eyes. That look turns her inside out so that everything is churning and there is nothing solid to hold to except the feather weight of that smile pinning her in place.

This is what guilt might feel like, Éponine thinks, if someone like her could ever properly feel such a thing.

“Where we’re going, it’s dangerous,” Éponine reminds her, hedging the truth. She cannot say the full meaning. For a moment, she hopes that Cosette will buckle under the warning. Then, Éponine would be proven right—proven  _worthy_. And Cosette, well, Cosette would survive.

Cosette clasps her hand, squeezing it in comfort Éponine does not deserve. There is not even a hint of give in that compassionate hold.

“Thank you,” Cosette says for the second time. “It means so very much to me that you’ll bring me to Marius when he needs me most. Take me as far as you dare, if it is too much a risk for you. I will fare the rest alone.”

“No,” Éponine says, biting back the worst of the things she cannot say, “We all go together. That’s the point after all.”

It is another shard of the truth spat up against her will. The rest of it, the crunched glass of the remainder, sits heavily in her still-churning stomach.

With Cosette’s soft hand still cradling hers, Éponine serves as their guide through the city. Cosette seems content to follow wherever she leads. Her trust in Éponine is complete; Cosette does not bat an eyelash at the dankest, most miserable street. That blind trust enrages Éponine.

Once they are alone again in a deserted street—and they are nearly to their destination at this point—she boxes Cosette against a wall. Éponine squares off her shoulders, trying to mimic that particular stance that can even make Montparnasse’s lithe frame look intimidating.

“You silly thing,” she says. That feeling, the shakiness in her knees has returned, and Éponine realizes it isn’t guilt that’s cutting her legs out from beneath her. No, this must be how Marius feels when he looks at Cosette.

Then they are kissing.

Éponine is certain she must have been the one to lean forward and press Cosette to the wall. Her thigh has found its way between the skinny trouser-clad legs in front of her, and she grinds up obscenely. Binding Cosette had been intimate, but this is something else entirely. There is nothing chaste in this. This is feverish; Éponine finds that heat everywhere she touches, from the hot mouth she parts with her tongue to the small waist she clutches under her hands, to the forbidden fork resting against the juncture of her thigh and hip. She finds it easy to grip into the loose folds of Cosette’s borrowed shirt. Her fingers are tantalized at the recollection how she had this warmth skin-to-skin less than a half hour before.

She bites at Cosette’s full lower lip. Cosette gasps into her mouth, a delightful little noise that dies trapped against Éponine’s own lips. Cosette should be pushing her away, but she does not.

No, instead Cosette responds hesitantly, but there is no protest.

Éponine wants to be softer for Cosette. She wants soft lips to match Cosette’s, but she is more than aware she only has roughness to give. So that's what she puts into her kisses. Cosette doesn't seem to mind, nor even to notice. Cosette merely returns naïve, demure kisses of her own, meeting eager tongue and stinging nips with light pecks that are no more than the touch of petals to the corner of Éponine’s mouth. Slowly, Éponine finds herself returning in kind—her attempt at gentleness is primitive and unpracticed, but she can feel Cosette smile under the attempt at tenderness.

Éponine finally pulls back reluctantly. They cannot afford to linger.

She finds that she cannot remove herself entirely from her place pressed against Cosette. Her own harshness returns the longer her mouth is parted from Cosette’s gentle one. She cannot stop herself from running her teeth along Cosette’s delicate jaw and chin and neck. She can't bring herself to look into Cosette’s face and see the shattering of that unearned trust. And she is not fool enough to hope for a different reaction, so she occupies herself with this task. It is a reprieve, giving her another place to fix her gaze and attention.

A soft touch of fingertips to her cheek guides her face upwards. Éponine tries to close her eyes, but she is transfixed.

Cosette has no reason at all to trust her—more than she even knows—and yet there is no distrust there at all. Cosette is breathless, but  _still_  she smiles. There might be sadness in that kind expression, but it doesn't cut like pity or suspicion—no matter how well deserved—might. Any doubt Éponine has is undercut by the flush at Cosette’s cheeks and the little gasp that rewards her when she presses her mouth to Cosette’s throat once again.

“Is this the reason..?” Cosette begins, and falters. Even faltering, her voice is melodic. Éponine understands the rest of the question intuitively:  _Is this why you brought me here?_

There is no condemnation in her tone, no judgment in those clear eyes.

Éponine grimaces and tries to gentle her hold. “Doesn’t matter, does it?” She need not spill the blood of her wounded heart out for this girl. To tell her the whole story is unthinkable. But Cosette’s brow and nose wrinkle in response to the deflection. Éponine doesn’t realize her breath is hitching until she has to gasp in a long draught of air.

“I...” Éponine starts, then stops abruptly. It takes a moment to recover, “I just wanted to see what the fuss was all about.”

She clears her throat and takes a step back from Cosette so there is a respectable distance between them. Long locks of hair are starting to escape from under Cosette’s cap, which is now severely askew, but Éponine does not right it this time. A red-hued trail runs along the underside of Cosette’s jaw. It might bruise or it may fade away, it is too soon to tell. On Cosette’s face is bewilderment as she works on a puzzle she doesn’t have all the pieces to.

Éponine still grasps those other jagged fragments of truth hard enough to cut herself upon their unforgiving edges: Marius doesn’t know they’re coming. Cosette doesn’t know—can’t know—that none of them have any hope of surviving this. And for Éponine's part, she does doesn’t know why she would like Cosette to keep on looking at her like she sees something worth looking at.

She will keep those last pieces for herself.

“C’mon,” Éponine says, knowing full well if she doesn’t speak up quick a question will be coming her way. “Marius is waiting.”

Cosette takes her hand again. This time the movement is nearly shy.

They are all fools, and they’ve gone about everything all wrong. But at least they are fools who have one fate to share between them, even if they never learned to share anything else.

 


End file.
